Writing it out.

When I started writing, I used it as a way to explore a situation I was going through – writing as therapy, you might say. Since then, I’ve used my characters to bounce ideas with, to allow things to play out on the page. I’ve put my characters into a situation and then just written word after word to see what happens.

Sometimes they surprise me.

In a way, I assume it’s allowing my thought process to work through whatever I need. I write through whatever I need to work through. Sometimes it makes for good writing! Now and then those writing exercises make it into a story in one form or another.

In recent months I’ve procrastinated with my writing. I’ve taught myself to crochet, taken up embroidery, started knitting a blanket. But stick with a writing project? Not been happening. Life got in the way. Every day there was something to be done, somewhere to be, demands on my time and energy which has meant by the end of each day I’ve not felt like writing. It’s been so hard to find the voices for characters.

All that is just excuses. I’ve been making excuses for too long. Time to get back in the writing saddle. I know, I’ve said that before. I’ll probably have to say it again.

Right now, though, I am feeling a pull I’ve not felt for a long time. You know when you reconnect with an old friend, discover their new life, the one they made without you while you were apart?

That.

Kate, her children all grown and flown the nest, some with children of their own, has wandered back into my head, ready to guide the next generation of Portal Mistresses as times and tides change and the need for the magic is back. Kate is grandmother to a teenager. Gentian is about to become a grandmother, her daughter, born at the end of Child of the Portal, is about to become a mother. Time has moved on for them, and calm has ruled where chaos once thrived.

A long shadow fell in the open doorway of the canvas sided yurt. Once dark hair fell in glorious curls past her broad shoulders. Gentian still made an imposing figure.

I have things I need to discuss with them, and Kate, as always, has most of the answers.